Meyer optioned back to AAA

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

  On 5/5/2016 at 3:01 PM, spycake said:

I think the best two options were to let him continue to work in AAA for another month or two to re-establish himself, or to call him up and start the MLB transition, whether it was bullpen from the get-go or a stretch of starting first like Trevor May.  I think most folks here are frustrated that the Twins chose a third path, which interrupted his work at AAA for a couple odd token appearances in MLB before an virtually predetermined return trip to AAA.

 

Also, sticking him in the bullpen for as long as they did last year probably held him back too, simply from an innings/opportunities standpoint.  He only threw ~55 innings after mid-May.  He probably should have returned to starting no later than July 1, after his brief promotion to MLB (I'm guessing they realized he wasn't going to be an immediate bullpen upgrade at that point, particularly since they didn't even call him up for expanded September rosters after a pretty effective finish for Rochester).

 

I agree this would be ideal, I'm just sure the circumstances surrounding the call up really allowed for it.  Like it or not, these types of things will happen with pitchers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

  On 5/5/2016 at 3:45 PM, diehardtwinsfan said:

I agree this would be ideal, I'm just sure the circumstances surrounding the call up really allowed for it.  Like it or not, these types of things will happen with pitchers.

I don't really blame the Twins for the situation that led to Meyer's promotion - they were in a bad spot - but I do blame them for sitting him for over a week, then yanking him out of the game after 2.2 innings and demoting him back to Rochester.

 

If you're going to give the guy an opportunity, give him a real opportunity.

 

If you're not going to give him a real opportunity, call up Pat Dean or someone else whose development doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

[Shane Wahl]

He needs to be a reliever. This is clear. I was shocked to see that they gave him a start.

[Willihammer]

Its a small sample obviously, but Statcast captured some extreme measurements in Meyer's 2 appearances.

http://m.mlb.com/statcast/leaderboard#avg-pitch-velo

First off, his average fastball velocity was 95.8, which was "only" good for 38th in baseball.

But his average extension was measured at 6.9 feet, tied with Noah Syndergaard for the greatest value on the statcast leaderboard. This extension bumps Meyer's average "perceived" velocity to 96.4, good for 12th on the Statcast leaderboard-  behind a lot of relievers mostly.

[KirbyDome89]

 

  On 5/5/2016 at 12:00 PM, Platoon said:

Therein lies the problem. They are doing neither. They are stuck in the middle. I will say this, it's too early to find decent trade partners for some of the high buck players. That won't happen until June, nor should it. But if after the ASG, we are still fielding this mess of a roster, someone in the FO needs to go! And the odds of that are??

Just so we're all clear I'm not defending the FO or any of the questionable decisions they've made. I'm as annoyed as everybody else. I was simply pointing out that at this point in the season the Twins aren't going to say "We suck, this year is lost." Its like listening to coaches of teams down 3-0 in a series, they won't say their teams are finished, even though statistically they essentially are. 

 

If by stuck in the middle you mean they act with one foot in the water and one foot out then I completely agree. The foot out of water meaning signing veterans to long contracts and trying to win that way and the foot in being committing to giving playing time to prospects coming through the system. I'm felt for a long time that they waffle back and forth between the two scenarios. You need some of each side to build a winning team, but with the way the Twins have been built one side (the youth) needs to outweigh the other. What is frustrating is that it doesn't seem to be happening. 

[gmarais66]

Many of the posts on here just crack me up. Everybody is blaming someone for Alex Meyer's issues, except Alex Meyer himself. It's Molitor's fault, it's Terry Ryan's fault, it's the way they've handled him... What a joke. The truth is that Alex Meyer cannot consistently hit the strike zone. He may be able to do it in spurts, but he can't do it consistently, meaning 5, 6, 7 innings or more. The problem? The kid can't consistently find his release point... Thus big ups when he can and big downs when he can't. And when he skids into one of those valleys, he's proven he's unable to get back on the road (thus his early exit from Tuesday's game). Meyer has been a professional for long enough where he should have figured it out, but he hasn't. Those who say that they aren't giving him a chance or they should have left him in longer on Tuesday, aren't acknowledging Meyer's serious deficiencies. He's lucky he even got a start, because after that horrific relief appearance last week, it was obvious he was nowhere near ready to start a big league game. 

[Mike Sixel]

No, it is not obvious after 1 or even 10 appearances someone is bad.....

[Reider]

 

  On 5/5/2016 at 2:41 PM, spycake said:

I think it's more than a bit hyperbolic to simply say Meyer "can't hit the strike zone", much less to suggest that he is worse in that regard than an average 15 year old amateur pitcher.  Most of his career, he's had a walk rate slightly higher than league average among professional competitors.

 

Level: Meyer BB% / League BB% 

AAA: 11.1% / 8.6%

AA: 9.7% / 9.1%

A+: 7.1 / 8.2

A: 9.3 / 9.0

 

And now he's had 7 walks in his first 6.1 MLB innings.  Trevor May had 7 walks in his first 2 (!) MLB innings.  Jose Berrios has 7 walks in his first 9.1 MLB innings.

 

Meyer may throw a few wild ones from time to time, but he's probably not trying to throw a simple strike on those pitches.  He is likely trying to achieve a combination of velocity, movement, and location that even an average minor league pitcher can't comprehend, much less your 15 year old amateur self.

This has nothing to do with me or my 15 year old self. I was just trying to make a point based on my personal life experiences. I'm not just making my opinion up out of thin air, this is just how I feel based on being a pitcher myself from that distance.

 

My point is that he's had over a decade pitching from that distance to the plate. If he can't hit the plate now, I don't know when he ever will.

 

As to your assertion that maybe his thought process is on another level than even a minor league pitcher, well perhaps he's over thinking things and making things more complicated than he has to. It's not helping.

 

I watched his relief appearance before his start and he was all over the place. I knew he wouldn't make it through the 3rd inning in his start, but I was only half joking when I made that prediction to someone I was watching the game with because as a Twins fan I was rooting for him and was really hoping he would pitch a great game. He went into that start with an 18.00 ERA. It makes me wonder if he's just over thinking things right now or if he's been a wild fire baller his entire career.

 

I actually think he has really good pitches when he hits his spots. I like his 97MPH fastball and his breaking ball / slider / curve, whatever you want to call it. I just think he needs to have better pitch selection (perhaps the catcher plays a big role in that) and secondly, he needs to have much better control. If he can't hit his spots, it's going to be tough to find success at the MLB level.

 

There's stats and stats only tell part of the story. Then there's the eye ball test and that fills in part of the rest of the story that the numbers to not tell. The eye ball test is what is concerning me.

[chopper0080]

Someone just explain why Meyer should start and Mays should be out of the bullpen because, to me, it seems that is backwards.

[jokin]

 

  On 5/5/2016 at 5:34 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

I don't really blame the Twins for the situation that led to Meyer's promotion - they were in a bad spot - but I do blame them for sitting him for over a week, then yanking him out of the game after 2.2 innings and demoting him back to Rochester.

 

If you're going to give the guy an opportunity, give him a real opportunity.

 

If you're not going to give him a real opportunity, call up Pat Dean or someone else whose development doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

This

 

From the day he was called up- and not put into the game in an obvious long relief role for which he obviously had been called up to fill and that was tailor-made for him (recall that he performed well in exactly the same situation in his first pitching appearance in AAA)- it appears that he was being set up for failure by the Twins. This all culminated in his premature yanking in his first start- which had all the earmarks of a manager saying to the GM:

 

"See, I told you so"

 

Very disappointing.